Ready for School

Man, I like this.  I agree with all of it.  Except for maybe the toilet and comedy one.

From I Miss You When I Blink:

BE BRAVE

Q: If something is hard to do, is that a reason not to do it?


A: Nope. That’s a reason to be extra proud after we’ve done it.

Q: What if we’re afraid we won’t be good at something?


A: Don't think about being good at it. Think of it as trying something new.

Q: Do we choose to do something or not do something because we worry people will talk about us?


A: No. People will always talk. We can at least give them something interesting to talk about.

Q: Do we have to be the best at everything?


A: Nope.

Q: Do we have to do our best at everything?


A: Yes. Always.

Q: Even math?


A: Even math.

BE KIND

Q: Do we ever do something that will hurt someone else?


A: No.

Q: Do we ever take or break something belonging to someone else?


A: No.

Q: If we do, by accident or on purpose, harm someone else’s body, feelings, or property, what’s the first and most important thing to say?


A: I’m sorry.

Q: What do we do if we see someone who has nobody to play with, sit with, or talk to?


A: Play with them. Sit with them. Talk to them.

Q: What do we say to every teacher and staff person we see?


A: Thank you.

Q: Do we ever make fun of our own sibling at school?


A: No. Save that for home. Just kidding.

Q: Do we tell the truth?


A: Yes.

BE WISE

Q: Do we do anything on purpose that could result in our own serious injury?


A: No.

Q: Does every single thing that pops into our head need to be said out loud at the moment we think it?


A: Dude, seriously. No.

Q: Do we say or do something just because we heard it on TV, saw it on YouTube, or read it in a book?


A: No. This is real life.

Q: What about cutting holes in our school clothes with scissors like that time ONE OF YOU CAME HOME WITHOUT THE LEGS OF YOUR PANTS -- is that a good idea?


A: No.

Q: Do we do anything AT ALL involving comedy and a toilet?


A: No.

Nolie, 7

Can you believe this kid is 7 already?

She and Addie made this "outfit" from scraps in my dress-up bin, in case you couldn't tell, and then took pictures of all the outfits and accessories they created and made a catalogue.

I'm part proud of this and part mortified.  You know, because I have at times been addicted to catalogues, and clearly that has translated a little.

Nolie:   I don't quite know what to say about her, because like always, and like with these birthday posts always, you'll just never get a full sense of the cosmic, maddening brilliance that is her, the tremendous, almost spooky sense of empathy she has, for instance, from a few paragraphs written off the cuff.

She is probably the most strong willed person I have ever met, and also one of the most gentle.

She is so much better, physically, than she was a year ago.  Her hair is full and she has grown almost an inch since April (E. measures them on birthdays and at the New Year, and for a long time, her marks were so close together as to suggest no difference, and the term "failure to thrive," usually applied to newborns, came to my mind often).  She has lost one tooth on her own, without having to have it pulled, and another is loose.  She loves soccer, movie nights, dancing, singing, playdates, cuddles, and reading.

She turns phrases like an adult, often to endearing or hilarious results.  But you laugh at your peril.  She requires above all to be taken seirously.

She refuses to learn how to ride her bike without her training wheels.  Both my kids have been slow on the uptake with the bikes.

She is still anxious and shy when meeting new people and in new situations, but it takes her five minutes to warm up and then she talks and talks and talks and makes best friends with everyone.

She still adores stuffed animals.  When given the choice, she will always buy the stuffed animal.

She is easily hurt.  Easily offended.  Easily embarrassed.  Still easily angered, though nowhere near as bad as last fall.

She is fiercely loyal.  When she wants to be.

We were rafting the Salmon River this summer, and she turned to our guide and told him he had longer armpit hair than her daddy.  She asks why I wear so much lipstick (I didn't think I did).  When I told her her words sometimes hurt my feelings, she immediately began telling me I "look younger than my years."  She is not afraid to call them like she sees them, and also totally happy to blow smoke when she thinks she should.

When one of us is gone, whether at work, or on a trip, or just running to the grocery store, she is just not right until that person is back.  I think she experiences our family as one unit, almost in a physical sense, and when one is gone, she finds it difficult to breathe or concentrate or be happy.  This deep connection with others, in my opinion, will be her greatest strength and her greatest burden.

I adore her and am inspired by her and am maddened on occasion by her.  I can't understand where she came from or who she will be.  She's just a gift of the most precious kind, and I feel so blessed to have her in my life.

Summer Slides

Today was the first day back at work in a meetings-in-the-office-all-day sort of way.  I was sort of dreading it, but am also sort of tired of the endless travel and unstructuredness of the days, and was maybe out of sorts at first.  It ended up being a lovely, easy day, and I was reminded that I very often like my work, and how lucky that makes me.

And I was also struck with some premature nostalgia for the summer, which is almost already all gone:

Berkeley

Universal Studios

Waiting in line for the Despicable Me ride

With Fuffikins

In Sweden

The Bob Marley Room, Delft

The Netherlands

Redfish

Big tooth lost, on a paddle boat in the middle of Redfish Lake.

The Sawtooths

McCall

Payette Lake

Ponderosa Pines, Magic

Tomorrow, I'm off to Logan Canyon for a writing spurt with the Hive.  Last trip for a while; I'm so grateful for everything that made these trips possible this summer, and am also so grateful that soon it will be time to be home, and to give myself over to the rhythms of fall and family as we return to school and routine.

More Signs

This is an actual, serious sign.  But I'm posting it, because by the time you figured out what the hell it means, the giant flood that is going to engulf all of the Netherlands, including you and your family, would have already swallowed you up.

Dogs say different things in different languages, but I'm pretty sure this is the universal dog-word for, "Yay!  I'm pooping on your lawn!"

Because fashion is an adventure sport.

Three Great Things

Jetlag kicked my ASS in the Netherlands (I barely felt it on the trip to Sweden) so the whole trip seems something like a dream.  But I remember taking these three pictures and thinking, these might be the very best things about living in Northern Europe (aside from the subsidized health care and education, and all that):

1.  The Town Square.  There are these areas where the buildings form a square, and in the middle of the square are giant, old-growth trees, and hundreds of tables and chairs with massive umbrellas and heat lamps.  All day long, people gather and congregate and have coffee, or a snack, or a beer or wine if it's the afternoon.  There are places for children to play and people chatter and relax and seem to enjoy life.  I don't think there's anything quite like it in the U.S., and it gives one a sense of community and the social that is totally pleasing.

And yes, I know I'm not noticing anything new here, flaneur, flaneuse, blah blah blah.  But it's still striking after living in isolating American suburbia the past six years.

2.  Bikes!  Everyone, and I mean everyone, rides bikes.  When I was a foreign exchange student in France twenty years ago (!) everyone could tell I was American because of how I dressed, even before I opened my mouth and they heard my accent.  Now, everyone can tell I'm American because I'm walking.  Sure, there are cars here, and some pedestrians, but mostly people are on bikes.  In heels.  In skirts.  As old ladies and men.  As toddlers (they have little scooters).  Dragging grocery carts behind them.  On crappy-shit bikes (most are).  On bikes with kiddy trailers.  With friends balanced on the steering wheel or the back wheel.  No matter how you cut it:  Two wheels are the thing.

I like this a lot.  I think there is a tyranny of the fancy bike in Colorado.  If you're not wearing spandex and a race jersey and on a $5000 bike, you look like a deranged bumpkin.  I much prefer the attitude in Northern Europe, which is that bikes are cheap, easy, and fun to use, and you don't need any special equipment to ride them.  They just get you from A to B, keep you healthy, and make sense.

It also helps that the entire culture is built around accommodating bikes.  There are massive bike parking lots at most public locations, and people rarely lock them.  Because most bikes are crappy, and everyone has one, so why steal one?

3.  Coffee.  The coffee is rich and thick and you stop every two hours to have one, and it's always served with a little shortbread cookie, which totally satisfies the urge for something sweet.

Perfect.

A Bedtime Story

Once, there was this gal, and she had to go to Europe for a week for work.  Back at home, this gal was married with two kids and two dogs, and had a nice house with a dog door in it.  It was a very nice family, and a pretty nice house.

The dogs were cute.

But a little dumb.

About ten feet from the dog door was a compost pile.  This gal liked to try things like composting, because she suffers from eco-guilt regarding everything she and her family consumes and throws away, being modern Americans and all.

Anyway, one night in Europe, this gal gets up early in the morning to find a text from her husband, saying that he is freaking out because he went downstairs in the middle of the night to let the dogs outside, and he found this:

See, the raccoon had come in through the dog door, because it likes eating out of the gal's compost pile, and because it had been raining real hard, and the dog door promised warmth and perhaps more food.  While the gal's husband and dogs were sleeping, the raccoon had come in the house, climbed up the blinds, and was now perched on top of the window, with one of its incredibly creepy little fingers attempting to get the vent open, so that it could live in the gal's vent system and ruin her drywall with its babies, urine, and feces.

Also, the gal needs to dust the top of the lamp.

That is nose drool on the ceiling.

The funny thing is, the dogs didn't wake up because there was a raccoon in their house.  Nope.  They just happened to need to pee.  So the gal's husband got up in the middle of the night to let them out, in the pitch dark, and just happened to hear something panting above him in the dark of the night.  He fumbled with the lamp, the one hanging right by our friend the raccoon, and when he finally got it on, he found our friend.

He almost pooped his pants.  That is a direct quote.

Here is the seemingly rabid, drooling raccoon.  Which is the size of a toddler.

The gal's husband finally shooed the raccoon out of the gal's house, and now the gal and her family make sure to lock the dog door every night.  The gal's husband had a hard time sleeping that night, for sure, and the gal threw up in her mouth a few times, all the way over in Europe, at the thought of this giant raccoon in her house, thousands of miles away.

The end.

Addie Selfies: A Series